Tinker or Transform? Making the Ideal Child Care Real

The Bainum Family Foundation, based in Bethesda, MD, has funded the development and launch of WeVision EarlyEd. They used a human-centered design process to engage “proximity experts”—defined as families, educators, and administrators—to reimagine a better birth to five child care system that would work for all families. Rather than laying out a policy blueprint, WeVision EarlyEd focuses on shifting mindsets. I interviewed Marica Cox Mitchell, Vice President of Early Childhood at the Bainum Family Foundation, over email. Read below to learn more about their approach to making the ideal child care system a reality.

What is the goal of this new project?

Our goal is to join others and amplify the need for a high-quality, universal child care system — an intentionally designed system that is driven by the needs of young children, families, educators and administrators. We started this work with a focus on Washington, D.C., because D.C. has long been a leader in early childhood. Our foundation also has invested more than $40 million over the last seven years in D.C. to support advocacy and services for young children. There’s a strong foundation to build on and a commitment here to invest in children and families. As the opening line of our new report says: “Washington, D.C. has a chance to do what no other American jurisdiction has done: get child care right.” That said, we think what we do here can impact other states and cities as well.

The child care crisis has received increased visibility. How does data from this initiative reinforce or expand what we already know?

It was important to start with those who are closest to the system. With help from Catapult Design, we spent seven months listening closely to a cross-section of families, educators and administrators who manage, work within or use D.C.’s child care system every day. This deepened our understanding of both the complexity and opportunity. Three things stood out:

1. Families, educators and administrators, who we call “proximity experts,” want the discourse to move beyond describing current pain points to conceptualizing and moving toward the more ideal future.
   
2. Their current journeys are similar, regardless of geographic location, source of funding or type of program. They all named lack of sufficient funding, the illusion of choice and fragmented information as barriers.
   
3. Their ideal system is less about their needs and more about the children they are responsible for. They all want more focus on child development and quality experiences.

The report does not include specific policy recommendations. Instead, it focuses on trading outdated mindsets for transformative mindsets. Why?

From the data, we saw that families, educators and administrators really want more than a tweak or Band Aid—they want to change and transform the system. This type of system change requires an assessment of the mindsets, or mental models, that are holding the crisis in place. These mindsets are invisible but powerful. Our racial, gender and class biases are also baked into these invisible mindsets. They are not as irrelevant as some may think.

Fifty years ago, President Nixon vetoed a universal child care bill in 1971 for fear that it would upset the longstanding mindset that universal child care minimizes the role of families and women in particular. More recently, we saw advocates splinter over mindsets about government overreach and funded options for families when the Build Back Better legislation was on the table.

Which mindsets have you identified?

We have focused on five:

1. Rethink when learning begins, recognizing the crucial importance of those early years and the specialized expertise of early childhood educators. Policies that prioritize pre-K at the expense of infants and toddlers create an artificial bifurcation and conflict with what we know about child development.
2. Rethink who needs child care. Stop positioning government-funded child care as mainly a pathologized and racialized intervention for “those kids,” when the reality is that all families want access to high-quality experiences to support their child’s development. This is a universal and bipartisan issue.
3. Rethink what child care costs and who pays for it. Child care done right is costly—more than families can afford and the government currently supports. As society shares the benefits of quality child care, it also should share the costs, similar to other public goods (public schools, roads, libraries, parks, etc.).
4. Rethink quality by setting baseline standards for all early childhood education programs as the floor of a fully funded system. Quality should be a given, not a luxury only some families can afford. Leveraging industry-recognized standards can create more coherence and redirect resources to help programs sustain quality. Government entities should stop trying to design their own “perfect” rating system; their funds would be better invested in attracting and retaining a well-qualified and competent workforce.
5. Rethink governance and decision-making to both acknowledge and take advantage of the expertise of families, educators and administrators. Government systems can be accessible, supportive, and accountable for public dollars.

What comes next?

An immediate next step, with $6 million in support from the Bainum Family Foundation, is to start making the ideal real by testing the feasibility of two big ideas that were generated by families, educators and administrators: 1) creating working conditions that support child outcomes, including schedule and staffing models that reduce burnout and increase retention; and 2) exploring models that can help early childhood education microsites and smaller programs expand their reach and become more stable, financially and operationally.

We will also use this initiative to work alongside policy influencers to unpack and challenge the outdated mindsets that continue to stand in the way of good policies. Transformative mindsets set the stage for transformative policies. Plus, we will continue to collect more data from families, educators and administrators, particularly data that moves beyond the narrow focus on current pain points. These proximity experts made it clear from the start that we need to move beyond the talk of reform to figure out how to “walk the talk” as well—that is, make the ideal real.

How can interested parties get involved?

We invite all stakeholders to get involved. That includes families, educators and administrators, as well as policymakers, policy influencers, philanthropic organizations, policy advocates, government agencies and researchers.

Our goal is to provide the gathering spaces, tools and time that are needed to define the ideal system and prepare to make the ideal real. We want to learn, support and collaborate with others.

The WeVision EarlyEd website has many resources, including our core report (with key findings), videos and a social media toolkit to help spread the word. Please connect with us at www.wevisionearlyed.org with your feedback and ideas, and follow us on social media.

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Marica Cox Mitchell is Vice President of Early Childhood at the Bainum Family Foundation. The Bainum Family Foundation is a funder of the Early & Elementary Education Policy program. Stay tuned for future blog posts about WeVision EarlyEd, including a post with key takeaways from the launch event held at New America on November 15, 2022.